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Dracula's Dog (1977)
A Dracula Movie for Those Who Might Prefer It To Be About Dogs
So it turns out Dracula had a dog, Bram Stoker just wasn't able to get to it in the limited space of his 418 page novel. The dog was something else too, self aware even before being claimed by Dracula in revenge for thwarting an effort to vampirize a buxom young servant girl. That's what they're there for, so Dracula converts to bat form and shows the dog who's in charge around here by turning it into Zoltan, Hound of Hell. To make doubly sure he also turns Reggie Nalder into what we are told is a "fractional lamia" and you may Wiki that if curious. Upon revival their apparent motivation is to find Dracula's only living male descendant and make his life a living hell. They succeed, interrupting dinner several times.
Darndest thing about the movie - and you need to have both a familiarity with vampire movies and a sense of humor for it to work - is that the scenes playing up the rank & file Vampire Movie Tropes happen to dogs. The one that finally broke through my need to adore this silly movie was when Dracula's Dog claims a puppy that wandered off, like Lucy vampirizing the little girl she found lost in the park. Then after the puppy's tearful internment, it worms its way up out of its grave -- shroud and all -- to pursue a living dead existence as a vampire puppy. It's still out there, looking for chew toys to pounce on.
Which unfortunately is the movie's inherent shortcoming: It's premise is likely too ridiculous for most modern viewers to simply enjoy as a quirky, offbeat, low budget, interestingly staged horror movie. Charles Band knows how to make an exploitation film. Stan Winston worked the makeup effects. Reggie Nalder and Michael Pataki are B grade horror movie legends who were thoroughly professional in their ability to keep a straight face. Jose Ferrer makes an excellent Van Helsing surrogate as a Romanian police inspector who knows how to stake a vampire like the best of them. The dogs are impeccably trained and cleverly substituted by what I imagine would be puppet creations during the worst of the bloodletting. Yes, if Count Dracula did have a dog that's how it would behave, though Wikipedia also tells us that the Doberman Pincher breed was not around until well after the dog's back story depicted in the film.
Then again all of the modern day dogs it converts into Hounds of Hell also end up resembling Doberman's, may have been Dracula's stylistic decision and they do indeed look the part. Not sure about the optical effect where their eyes light up, and the altered vampire dog howling is overdone in spots: Vampires always work best when they are hissing speechless wraiths portrayed by women in their 20s wearing push-up brassieres. Those who need such accouterments to make their Dracula movie complete should look elsewhere. Those looking for an early Charles Band thriller which actually has some decent ideas will be well rewarded with a Milk Bone for being good.
La plus longue nuit du diable (1971)
Had Forgotten How Effective This Is
Decent Euro Horror outing from Belgium of all places, produced by Italians but with a unique sense of place. Very well written story about an Arkload of stereotypes representing the seven deadly sins obliged to spend the night in a rural castle with a history of occult happenings. Each meets their demise in ironic accordance with the sins they represent: Gluttony, greed, lust, vanity, infidelity, and envy get the main focus while a handsome seminary student is bombarded by temptation as a test of his faith.
Much of the film's success should be attributed to genre film favorite Erika Blanc as the castle's resident succubus, ushering in the fates of the passengers like a Greek chorus. Her presence highlighted not only by the daring one-piece temptress from Hell costume they poured over her fantastic body - No false curves on this one, that's all natural and it still hurts when she bends over, yow. The genius of her makeup during the succubus scenes would have been futile without Ms. Blanc's ability to distort her facial countenance in a manner which is downright eerie. It's a genuine actual performance which comes through regardless of language translation, not just a willing pair of tits in a daring costume.
The other performance of surprising merit is Daniel Emilfork bookending the film as the Great Deceiver himself, superbly cast to not just make the most of his uniquely shaped head but the lightness of his gestures and look of spry delight as he brings torment onto the novice priest. You never make a deal with the devil, especially one who seems so polite, reasonable, and unthreatening.
The other attribute about the film which had slipped the mind is the claustrophobia which pervades almost every indoor scene, with the action stuffed into windowless bedchambers, endlessly curving turret corridors, airless basement kitchens, and stuffy cobweb thick attic spaces. They're even locked in the castle with no way out, or at least they are in the narrative of the priest's satanic nightmare which gives the movie its (English) title.
The film exists in several versions and due to a copyright lapse found its way onto innumerable bargain bin DVD pressings during the 2000s, most of them showing the uncut print. Best bet is to stick with whatever BR release is circulating, it may even feature the re-structured version titled THE DEVIL WALKS AT MIDNIGHT as a bonus, though there is also more than one version of that as well. Which is part of the movie's fun if you ask me: Great art should be able to take a re-fit and still come across as effective.
Morbus (o bon profit) (1983)
Movie About A Guy Who Smokes A Pipe
He has a thick beard, and several scenes in the film are dedicated to him filling, lighting and thoughtfully smoking the pipe as the young lady sits there, stark naked, observing him enjoying his pipe. They nod to each other in appreciation of what a fine pipe it is, and how much he enjoys his pipe.
Her name is Carmen Serret and she delightfully wanders through a significant portion of the movie absolutely naked. No imagination required, though I wonder what the pipe scenes are really about.
Then there's Victor Israel, playing himself. During the movie's most blasphemous scene he evokes a likewise completely naked female to sneeze. How that came to the mind of anyone is likely best left up to commentary tracks on Blu Ray DVDs by horror movie historians as an audio option. But it was a first for horror cinema to befall mine eyes: That was new.
There are also zombies who devour several supporting cast members and a troupe of satanists on bicycles, who likewise spend a significant portion of their allotted screen time completely naked. If one is concerned about a sexist agenda fret not as both genders are equally objectified, paraded around from all angles, and then devoured by the zombies.
The formula works even when stuck without a language translation, mostly because the film's objectives are limited to the above and the dialog minimal to begin with. There is nothing to be learned except what the leading actress looks like with absolutely nothing on, for which we commend her greatly. Thank You!
The film also boast a uniquely odd electronic music score, including use of a Vocoder type voice synthesizer producing passages of other worldly sounds which transcend the gutter in which the film's ideas are content to wallow. As far as garbage grind house latter-era Euro Horror exploitation cinema goes, it's a quiet sleeper masterpiece that has patiently awaited re-discovery. Though for most people it's just a low budget foreign made zombie movie with lots of naked girls. You can do worse by either measure.
The Six Million Dollar Man: The Coward (1974)
If Only The Entire Series Had Maintained This Edge
Really superb episode from the first season of The Six Million Dollar Man. Before Bigfoot and the Bionic Tennis Shorts became fads the series was an action adventure midseason replacement for grownups. My dad thought it was cool and let me watch. Steve Austin was originally a human outfitted with mechanical parts, not a comic book superhero with a disco mustache. Still wore the lounge suits but there was some serious television going on, and while my heart will always be with "Day of the Robot" this is likely the most serious of them all.
The subplot involving Steve getting to the bottom of the mystery surrounding his father's disappearance is a masterful way to both humanize the Bionic Man and build upon the character that Lee Majors had slowly been developing. Climbing a mountain to find a crashed spy plane are just the action/adventure trappings, around which are some decent performances. The cast helps drive the story forward, with "Star Trek" alumni and a convincing appearance by George Montgomery as the deserter co-pilot who has to break it to Steve that his father wasn't a coward after all.
Interestingly, Steve then apparently climbs back up the mountain to retrieve his father's remains for burial back at Arlington. When? Did he report back to Oscar first or go back up alone solo? Or did someone have the good sense to formally intervene for a diplomatic truce and land a Chinook up there with a qualified forensics team. While uniformly enjoyable, most of the first season stories don't leave one wondering what happened between scene wipes. This one has a complexity that is greater than what the series usually expected of itself.
Also done without much fuss or bother. The episode is straightforward, such to the point that there isn't much humor or joking around. No sly one liners, but Montgomery's line about Steve having just buried his father sticks with you. Dodgy stock shots of parachutists and mountain climbing scenes with the ground visible below aside, there isn't a spare scene or unnecessary moment and it's all storytelling. No tricks or gimmicks. The bionics work is part of the story and none of it is sensationalized. Compared to the mayhem with Bigfoot or the Death Probe it is almost a totally different show.
If only the series had been able to maintain such an edge, though sadly seven year olds like myself were enthralled and our parents put off by the body count. ABC found out and by the end of the 2nd season it was a family show. By the end of season 3 he was jumping up into trees to save cats, and then came the mustache. Still never missed an episode.
Saturn 3 (1980)
Who Wouldn't Want To Do A Nude Scene With Farrah Fawcett?
I mean, come on. Stanley Donen and John Barry's unfortunate "Saturn 3" is actually quite watchable in spite of all the bad press it got, and continues to get. Cyber junk science fiction composed of the futuristic technology from "Star Wars" crossed with horror thriller attitude from "Alien" with great eye candy for geeks of all varieties. It isn't all bad, and what is bad manages to at least be entertaining.
Movie has a personal attachment: I was just old enough to have been caught up in the Farrah Fawcett craze with the swimsuit poster, though her affiliation with "The Six Million Dollar Man" was more impressive. Was confused why he hadn't hooked up with "The Bionic Woman" instead, whom I always thought looked better in tennis shorts and was far more approachable. But she didn't do a swimsuit poster and wasn't a Charlie's Angel and you can't fault Colonel Steve Austin for tagging the supermodel celebrity while it was a happening thing. That's what divorce courts were made for, and story has it she sued for hers as soon as shooting wrapped.
So when it became known that Farrah Fawcett was starring in a sleazy R-rated horror movie aping both "Alien" and "Star Wars", seeing how bad it was for yourself became a rite of passage. No you don't get to see her totally naked but you do get to see Kirk Douglas naked, and the absurdity of it rules while evoking laughter which continues to this day. That Douglas insisted on doing so as part of his contract makes it even funnier. Yes, he was in great shape, the jumprope a genius idea. You also don't get to hear Harvey Keitel recite his dialogue in them shiny PVC pants, but he got the cool Darth Vader space suit and an entertainingly gruesome demise.
One has to get their wins where they can, and the Hector robot may not be a cybernetic Alien stomach burster but does look like a copying machine gone bad, technology audiences were well acquainted with come 1980. He is a suitable Frankenstein and the only one of the cast I felt anything for. The eye stalks may look wimpy but you wouldn't want them glowing at you from across the room at 3am with the lights out ... Actually, that would be kind of cool, and the whole film is steeped in a sort of early 80s cyber-psychedelia. It's far out, man.
The movie also crosses "Doctor Who" television production design with cleaned up version of "Silent Running" with big store room chambers filled with odd looking futuristic packing crates. Everything is clean and spotless even though it's just a couple with their dog shacking up, going around naked in their bathrobes and nighties. The small cast poses and cavorts in front of the packing crates and gleaming consoles in space gear, 1970s jogging gear, intimate sleepwear, various work clothes type costumes, and naked in their bathrobes.
I genuinely feel that the menace and conflict could have been avoided by the plot if they had not wandered about this multi million dollar research station (allegedly on Tethys) naked in their bathrobes. And am certain they wouldn't have had to go through such a violent ordeal if someone had asked Captain Benson for his ID before letting him flutter off with the genius experimental robot. He was inexplicably late for an expensive time sensitive launch and should have been given a hard time for it, whoever showed up.
In fact one of the things that works in the existing film's favor is that it's over and done with in under 90 minutes. Most cyberthriller space junk movies these days set you back at least two hours. So while the movie is silly and its plotting absurd, it isn't around long enough to get old and remains entertaining all the way through. Great sound design too, you watch it like listening to a record album. Further web searching on the title reveals a gloriously troubled, ego-driven production history (google "Making of Saturn 3" for a good time) that may have terminated various careers but managed to do so without actually killing anyone.
There were even bigger budgeted fiascos which did, and as a proud owner of a prior rental VHS with playback errors it appears to have been a popular home video choice. The Blu Ray is sweet and will continue rewarding with multiple viewings. I do wish there had been more of the robot parading around with Harvey Keitel's head stuck to its shoulders but the night is still young, other absurdities await. My highest recommendation.
Midnight Mystery (1930)
Quirky and Engaging Pre-Code Thriller
Nifty low budget Dark House mystery film to check out here. Like the best of the genre the house & location are the real stars, and the stage play derived nature suits the film well. For whatever reason the spoiled brat inheritor of a family fortune chose to live with his popular mystery writer wife on a windswept rain soaked isolated island. He's something of a jerk and openly resentful of his wife's independently won success. She is apparently too enamored with the security his wealth brings to tell him to go stuff it and find someone else. Whether they actually love each other is besides the point, they have busy social lives and being married to each other is helpful enough for both to put off finding out till later.
He invites a group of friends, associates and jealous enemies who have not revealed themselves yet to yacht out for a weekend of Prohibition-free partying. Bitter rivalries are brought to the surface, the resident life of the party makes a pass at the wrong woman, and someone ends up dead, bobbing lifelessly in the surf below in an eye openingly graphic moment which would never have been allowed during the Production Code era. How the victim came to be there is revealed immediately to the viewer and the rest of the film concerns itself with how long the guilty party can deflect attention from their own troubling behavior.
I liked the jilted husband character, Lowell Sherman (cast in the film's Lionel Atwill role), and it is only when his character breaks mold that the film's tension falls apart into a somewhat predictable conclusion. Atwill would have ridden that surfboard right onto the Sea of Fire. I'm new to the Pre-Code mystique and unfamiliar with Betty Compson, am aware she was a celebrity starlet of the 30s whose acting skills appear suitable for such fare. But her ditzy mystery writer character is not interesting enough to wonder about what books she may have written. She acts the role as a personality and does carry the film well enough until the last two or three minutes, which will do.
I'm a tough audience, have been making a study of as many creaky Old Dark House mystery thrillers as there's time for, and this stood out from the rest as one to sit down and write about in some manner. Deserves to be seen in a restored form; a key second appears to be missing on the print I saw, hope its not lost for good. But for heaven's sake, don't remake it. Works just fine as the period relic that it is and proof that some of those relics are still quite good.
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
On This Mixing Of Blood & Ashes ...
Good Hammer movie, glad they managed to shoehorn Count Dracula into it, and during a viewing of the complete unmessed with blu-ray version have hit upon an idea as to how the followup "Scars Of Dracula" managed to take place within the same fictional universe seen here: "Taste" continues with the concept that Count Dracula can be re-spawned from mixing his dried bodily remains with somebody else's blood, or mixing someone's blood with his ashes as utilized in "Dracula Prince Of Darkness". Same difference. Since Dracula must have been aware of this quirk of his, it would stand to reason that he would prepare for the eventuality of his demise by preparing a regeneration procedure.
The vampire trade is a tricky business with Van Helsing and his ilk lurking about, random running water accidents, or simply not making it back to the coffin in time. So back at the castle he lets himself of enough blood to ensure regeneration, allows it dry to powder, maybe burns the powder to ashes just to be sure, and then sets up the hidden chamber later seen in "Scars Of Dracula" with spare cape ready to go. He'd have two. He then possesses the being of a few local vampire bats thusly hot-wired into his awareness loop who would have had instructions suggested to vampirize a suitable human upon his demise. Then homer like a pigeon back to the hidden chamber to regurgitate blood all over the dried remains Dracula had prepared for just such eventuality. Walla - Continues the narrative universe of this film, and does not require a bridging story for "Scars" to account for how Dracula ended up as ashes in the hidden chamber.
They just never showed him setting it up, see. After all there's no way for anyone to get down there without walking upside down on the wall, so ... OK a rope, granted, but how else did his remains get down there unless Dracula had done it himself? OK a servant i.e. Klove, again granted, though we do not know for sure if Klove or anyone was an employee at Castle Dracula before this resurrection. Why would Dracula need a servant if he's just a pile of ashes? Or dried blood, hard to keep the trope straight in the mind other than you add someone's blood to it, and in the case of both this film and "Prince of Darkness" it was a man's blood mixed with dried Dracula powder ... What if you'd mixed it into a woman's blood? Golly! Sounds like Hammer may have made the wrong movie.
I've never been a huge fan of this one, not sure why as it's certainly a better film than the silly modern era Dracula's Hammer produced after "Scars". "Taste" is just not as fun as those are, my preference usually being to revel in the silliness of their fabric rather than being sobered by the dark and serious supernatural soap opera of this film. Now as an older chap there's time perhaps for both? You can't say no to Linda Hayden either. Michael Ripper is great, Ralph Bates even better. I like the part where Dracula trashes a church organ. Photography and locations unique for a Hammer horror. And as seen on updated uncut prints the result holds up well even if Dracula still doesn't have much to do with it. "Good viewage."
UFO: Top Secret (1978)
Come For The UFOs, Stay For The Music?
Brainless stream of consciousness "UFO documentary" seemingly written by a flying saucer enthusiast completely lit on potent St. John's Wort who had just tripped out to a book on astronomy. The film is literally 80 minutes of an enthusiastic narrator babbling utterly jumbled up saucer speak or future shock pep talk nonstop while endearingly low-tech space visuals play out.
Lots of abstract space art scenes, shoebox diorama model shots, and NASA clips hurtle by while the narrator continues on and on. Most of the visuals have nothing to do with the narration, amounting to a bizarre form of retro-futurist science fiction without any narrative. In fact the movie might have worked better without the narration, which serves to only devolve the effort into space kitsch.
I have a taste for such things, yet can remember no individual moment, claim, fact or insight in the whole proceedings that stood out as memorable. My conclusion at the time was that it is a perfect movie to have on while you are doing other things. Any given stretch of it is as good as any other so you can drift in and out while doing the dishes, working on your taxes, playing Quake II, avoiding social media, or just binge-dowloading brain dead crap like it off Archive. Org.
Yes the documentary sucks, and whatever color the film had is sadly washed out on mighty Interglobal Video's surviving VHS print. But in my opinion is still more enjoyable to have on than the news, Dr. Pol, Storage Wars, Ancient Aliens twaddle, or Snoop Dog & Martha Stewart making sandwiches. What *do* people watch these days, and why?? Best news is that this is night but one of five such epic tomes crafted by the great Wheeler Dixon, an artist and film theoretician who may have been putting one over on everyone. Hope he made some money off the efforts.
By choosing this you will learn nothing about UFOs, government conspiracies, secretive alien activities or insight into life in the future. Viewers with a taste for cinematic kitsch will at least enjoy the musical score which concludes with a soaring Beatles-like instrumental that made me wonder if it's that band Klaatu (nope: Jim Cookman is the credited unknown composer, wish we could hear more).
I'll concede that the music alone is not strong enough to carry the film, but is odd enough to make sections of the film more enjoyable for those who despise contemporary commercialized pop entertainment forms. A good application for the film might be as a visual projection during a DJ party. Just turn the sound off, jam the music mix and let the shifting images roll by. Even people who aren't stoned will dig that.
Best Evidence: The Roswell Incident (2007)
Less Noxious Than Most Such "Specials"
Not as intelligence-insulting as most of this fare even though 75% is just rehashing the pro's and con's of the Roswell myth, of which I was an ardent believer in at one time. The other 25% of the episode attempts to "re-create" the crash of what they refer to as a "scaled down" facsimile of a Project Mogul surveillance balloon train. Quite telling that the producers utilized the services of a Hollywood special effects designer to fabricate the assorted accouterments of such an undertaking rather then anyone with a background in constant level ballooning. He and his team of assistants give it the old college try and appear to be sincere about the effort.
But like SciFi Channel's Roswell archaeology dig fiasco the results are less than impressive - A meager pile of tinfoil trash which isn't big enough to convince the believers and leaves the skeptics at a loss to explain why it looks so paltry. We the viewer understand why Discovery couldn't just whip up a 650 foot long 26 balloon train with all the fixins, but the end result is a null-sum gain. Insult is added to injury by giving David Rudiak and his chocolate bars screentime to mockingly dismiss the Mogul explanation as a farce after more or less showing us exactly what his ET explanation seems to refute. Couldn't book Kevin Randle, I guess.
What the episode does manage to do effectively is demonstrate how human exaggeration, misinterpretation and outright prevarication has resulted in myth which circumvents the scientific method's ability to explain it. You either believe it or you don't, see, and which way one leans is likely more related to their inner character than whatever verifiable facts there are to draw a conclusion on. Or, all that the guy found on his ranch was an equally unimpressive pile of trash which ignorance, enthusiasm and chicanery morphed into flying saucer debris. Just look at how quickly COVID rumor misinformation took hold for a modern day example of a similar cultural dumbing down.
That people can be so eager to believe such things in the face of overwhelming evidence against is usually an indication that you are onto something and the Roswell industry is still big business. Those pro-ET crash landing books will never go away and reasons to write new ones are being concocted right now by those who surely know better. Look at it all as situationist science fiction, the books/programs as entertainment, this one less noxious than most, and as long keep your wallet in your pocket no harm done.
A few bonus points by giving some airtime to Roswell skeptics Dave Thomas and Joe Nickell rouding out the horse and pony approach, always enjoyable to hear them shred the ET explanation to the fore winds. And the late Stanton Friedman keeps in character by dismissing their balloon experiment as an act of futility which will only further the divide. In the end the program is neither here nor there, just sort of existing as a diverting way to toke away 45 minutes of being stuck inside on a cold winter's night.
The Bat Whispers (1930)
Well Worth Your Time
I was an art school schnook swept up in the Batman pop culture craze surrounding Tim Burton's 1989 film and recall beer pub discussions about a seldom seen movie from the 1930s which "sets up" the whole Dark Knight premise, which you just had to see to believe. Never got to see it at the time and only came upon it now by chance after becoming fascinated by pre-code Hollywood made thriller or horror films. Immediately recalled those third pitcher of Pabst tales of what it had suggested to Bob Kane which he utilized in collaboration with Bill Finger in creating what became Batman by 1939. Good art leads to more art: The grim opening sequence would have been right at home in the pages of "Detective Comics" including the roomful of policemen who can't protect a likewise threatened man from Joker's first appearance in "Batman #1". Thought of it immediately.
Now, set all that aside and witness the film for what it actually was: A daringly visionary effort to subvert cinematic methods in creating a visual form which hadn't existed before. Because the approach is visionary rather than formulaic some will simply not get it, and indeed the film performed poorly and fell into obscurity. I'd offer that the film's overt and deliberate artfulness stands head and shoulders above the horror or thriller films of its era, which were usually character driven. This one's driven by cinematics. The only thing it could fairly be compared to would be "King Kong" which also utilized model photography, forced perspective, overlay tricks and used light as a storytelling motif. The look of the film is like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" on acid, with sound, and told via set-piece scenes that follow the pattern of the Old Dark House thrillers which had proven popular at the box office. You'll live through the arduous comic relief scenes, and their character provided a big laugh during the climactic showdown.
The story is something of a mess: The film has at least two if not three villains operating independently of each other. The most ruthless & insane first shadows then manipulates the actions of the other two, then kills them (well, at least one of them ...??) After three viewings I still can't resolve a few plot points, namely which villain is doing what at certain times. Rest assured some of what takes place is super creepy including an eye popping sequence where a masked killer looms out of the shifting darkness to bring peril onto the film's attractive female lead. While this is happening an assortment of characters inhabiting a country manor have their knitting disturbed by the comings and goings of assorted characters, each of whom may be one (or more?) of the villains. "The Bat" sort of oversees the proceedings, darting across the screen like a ghostly Nosferatu shadow to threaten all sorts of horrible things in a bizarre half whispered voice.
Hence the title, which was the first sound version of "The Bat", and director Roland West making a subtle pun in its title about The Bat's preferred method of communication. Sound films were still a novelty and this one's villain whispered. Widescreen and fullscreen versions have been restored and as others make note are subtly different enough to consider evaluating both. As one might expect the widescreen version goes all-out with filling the screen composition with activity or interest and it sometimes overcomes the performances taking place therein, which are the focus of attention on the fullscreen print. My suggestion is to first watch the widescreen print for its visuals then the fullscreen version for its story, as you're likely going to need a 2nd viewing to make sense of what all transpires. Or at least most of it ... ??
Fog Island (1945)
Macabre, Gruesome, and Quite Charming
"Fog Island" is like a 1940s detective/horror pulp magazine come to life in the seediest of black and white. George Zucco is excellent as the vengeance-driven owner of a gorgeously macabre island mansion populated by hidden passageways, secret cubbyholes, skeletons in the basement and a gloomy glowering gloom that is to be basked in like a cold subterranean bath. To regard the film as a horror genre outing misses the point. It's a "Shudder Pulp" crossed with an old dark house creaker, not quite a horror movie but more than just a dime store mystery. For one thing the "horror" is all man-made, unless you believe that phony psychic didn't just get lucky in foreshadowing the unnerving conclusion on a least two occasions. No monsters, vampires or other supernatural manifestations of dark fantasy, but instead a dank, claustrophobic, mouldering catacomb of doom under a house no sane person would want to live in for very long.
Only real complaint I'd have is that the good stuff is over far too soon, including co-star Lionel Atwill packing the fastest knife in slasher movie history. Zip! Boom! Baa! And it's back in his coat pocket or whatever quick-draw device he carries it in, faster then the Hays Code censors could take offense to the film boasting an utterly cold-blooded psychopath. Not just willing to kill off his so-called friends but without thinking and at instances which couldn't have been meditated upon, unless that was his goal all along. His demise at the conclusion was too easy, horrifying and nightmarish as the scene is, right out of a gruesome EC Comics nightmare, taking other equally unworthy souls down the toilet through their own stubborn headed greed, and good riddance. Everyone pretty much gets what they had coming, another shared attribute with late 40s pulp horror. The film is also devoid of the usual comic relief hokum - thank God - and its obligatory romance actually meshes well with the plot for a change ... Likely a lingering after-effect of having been tightly honed as a stage production first rather then a filmed deal derived from populist formulae. Most refreshing.
Questions remain: How did the murderer know about the secret floor chamber in the crypt? And whose skeleton does he add his fresh kills to? Slamming the lid like he'd dumped a sack of coal. Did the skeleton come with the house? The movie won't tell. It's just sort of there, like the secret panel on the mantlepiece, the trick organ key, secret passageway, levitating pneumatic desk, escaped felon butler, opportunist former cellmate and random copy of "Crime & Punishment". There was no way for the story to have ended up any other way & questioning the logic of such elements undoes the fun. Some might call those plot holes, I prefer to look upon them as curiously successful touches to a dank and clammy little film that is amongst my favorite ways to pass 68 minutes of life. Deserving of a real archival restoration, if that's even possible.
The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence (2002)
Ninety Minutes Down the Drain
This absurd packaging of everything you already knew about the "Roswell Incident" has a marvelously telling moment when the archaeologist leading the expedition to excavate the very furrow where their alien spaceship allegedly impacted realizes they could be excavating any of the furrows within the former sheep pasture. How they chose that one particular spot to dig is very curious as nobody who found the said wreckage in 1947 is involved with the spectacle, directly advised the crew, or for that matter is even still alive. New Mexico looks pretty much the same and nobody left out a marker plaque to commemorate the spot, so any spot is as good as the one they chose. It's in the same state, same county, likely on the same ranch land and maybe even within a stone's throw of where whatever came to earth ended up. But give us a break.
They do, by picking another spot to excavate while the archaeologist wanders around until finding the remains of a modern day weather balloon, demonstrating that weather or observation balloons really did fall to earth on this sheep ranch often enough to be notable. If you are going to send a balloon train aloft New Mexico seems to be the place to do it, both in 1947 and 2002, likely 2021 as well.
The only other useful insight provided by the production comes from Dave Rudiack's c.2000 era PowerMac Photoshop enlargement of the message held in the hand of General Whatshisname while kneeling by the unimpressive scraps of balloon target remnants shown to the press in 1947 as a handy coverup to a sheep rancher having found a classified observation device. Dr. Rudiack uses various zoom and rotate techniques before adding his own translation to the fuzzy typing from 1947 and argues that it purports to refer to the victims of a crashed flying saucer. That we the people have not heard much else about this hypothesis speaks volumes for the results, which was about as scientific as putting shapes to cloud formations.
But it did kill 90 minutes of pandemic quarantine time, so I guess the production was successful. Just, really really stupid.
Assassin (1986)
Enjoyable & Engaging Cyberpunk Effort
Robert Conrad is called out of retirement by screenwriters who saw at least the opening ten minutes of "Firefox" to stop a man-made killing machine named Robert Golem and played by character actor Richard Young. He's good. Aiding Conrad in his mission are a fetching lady cybernetics expert who helped devise Mr. Golem and several gleefully corrupt CIA agents who excel in not comprehending Golem's one purpose to exist, which is to kill people. Referring to the film as a "Made for TV Terminator" is about right, with the premise of a scientist who programs a hit-list of everyone he can't stand prior to offing himself not outside the realm of possibility even if the robot currently is.
He's some robot too, the tall dark handsome type, which makes sense. Why craft an ugly android who can't function socially? and if you ask me he is the most interesting character in the movie. Standout scenes include a one-night stand with a Linda Hamilton lookalike, leaping from various buildings to land on his feet, straighten his tie and amble off into the night, and a bizarre scene where he hacks an ATM with a greasy haired street punk looking on. He gives the kid a mocking raised eyebrow before sauntering away with his cash, demonstrating that he was also programmed to have at least a vestigial sense of humor. I'd hit the bars with him.
Others may disagree but I find the movie to be an engaging passable timekiller, with some decent action scenes, a healthy body count and an interesting perspective on how unelected government officials often regard the elected ones as obstacles to their wishes to govern the way they'd prefer. Gives one reason to pause in the Pandemic Age about whose line to believe, with scientists or physicians serving as pawns for those who are determined to play by their own rules. Conrad makes a decent lead, even getting the Girl in the end, with the robot's inevitable demise a marvelous laugh-out-loud moment for those who wonder how such things might take place. Easily found on YouTube or any number of bargain-bin DVD movie collections, which is where it likely belongs.
A Cure for Wellness (2016)
Return of the Euro Horror Thriller
Seriously. Right down to the demented Count who transforms into a slavering disfigured drooling monster for the big finish down in the Eel Grotto. The plot revels in perverse psycho-sexuality rife with symbolic symbolism symbolized by a barrage of symbols that eventually become a checklist. The film wallows in overtly arty cinematography - the image of the rotund ladies swimming in the pool will stick with you - and boasts one of the most interestingly staged car crashes in movie history. You are in the car with them and for my money it was the high point of the film. Which does go on for about twenty minutes more than it should have: What is it with these film magnates insisting we invest three hours in their forty million dollar movies? Even ALIEN got in & got it done in under two hours for 1/8th of that. Take a hint.
Not sure about the eel thing. They are (sorry) repulsive slimy room-temperature cold wriggling things best left alone, in nature, where they belong. We do not wish to drink them or bathe with them, and those of a perverse mindset may be disappointed that the riveting image of Mia Goth languishing in a bathtub filled with them lasts just as long in the complete film as it does on the trailer. I would wish to prefer to think that the majority of their presence in the film is CGI manipulation of some kind - Lots of sensuously undulating swimming eel scenes, including in rehearsed groups like synchronized swimmers. Right. So, they were faked unless being found in the guts of things gutted onscreen. Like, ew.
Other than the shock sequences involving the eels the film sets out to try and disturb its viewers rather than "scare" them in the traditional sense of the term. I am claustrophobic, have a fear of drowning and will admit to being owned by the depravation tank scene. The main gist of the film is about its location(s), the arty staging of the cinematography, and it's methodology of creating ill at ease within the viewer. The story works up until the big revelatory moment, then languishes in a seemingly arbitrary repeat of certain earlier passages played with a reversed tone. It's to emphasize the disease and corruption which lurks beneath the seemingly placid appearance of this "heath spa", a horror film motif the Italians approached with more directness in films like "Slaughter Hotel".
Is the movie any good? Well, it depends on what you are looking for. I actually liked Dane DeHaan as the schnook sent to endure the action of the film, but you are not watching this for the performances. If you want outright horror with severed heads flying and stuff being blown up you can skip this one. If you like lingering in twisted Freudian psycho-fantasies where everything is a clue and every meaning has more than one interpretation, rent this immediately (selling my DVD/BR after one viewing: am good with one sitting).
If you are a fan of ghoulish old Euro Horror creakers you might want to take a look to see what has become of the form: They even burn the place down at the end, which is right out of Hammer Horror. The climactic scene of the wicked Count claiming his daughter (ew, again) to continue the bloodline right out of the Spanish made "Blood Castle" and its staging borrowed from Hammer's "Kiss of the Vampire". The waltzing scenes come from "Web of the Spider" and the creepy little girl music them from any dozens of other continental Euro Thrillers stretching across several genres.
The film even references Paul Verhoeven with a kid playing with a "Robocop" action figure during a flashback scene just like "Robocop" has a kid playing with an action figure in a flashback scene referencing another pop culture form (ROM: Space Knight). It references the reference like it symbolizes the symbolic symbols, namely to the point of overkill which many viewers will find tedious, others fascinating. I found to be more of the same of forms which I enjoy, with just, like, lots of #$*ing eels ... Blehh.
Which just goes to show that nobody's made a really new "original" horror film since "Dawn of the Dead" in 1978. It's been *that* long ...
Die schwarzen Adler von Santa Fe (1965)
Brad Harris Rides Again
German produced Westerns made in the former Yugoslavia during the 1960s are a pet favorite. The long running "Winnetou" series with Tarzan actor Lex Barker were as popular in Europe as the James Bond films, or any other semi-serial of related features. The best known examples of the Schnitzel Western form, they have an unreal quality about them, set in uniquely decorated East European hill country with rock formations even more bizarre in appearance to those used for locations by the Spaghetti Western directors in Spain. "The new old west" is what Roger Ebert called the look. North American Westerns all look the same, no offense intended. European made Westerns look like Star Trek episodes in comparison: "Fake", confined to tightly claustrophobic sets, populated by actors costumed for style rather than authenticity.
This is a pretty smooth one. "Sampson/Hercules" actor Brad Harris plays the secret agent who rides into a bloody landscape torn apart by Comanche raids on frontier settlements as reprisal for having traditional Native lands taken away by a would-be oil baron who sets up the U.S. Cavalry to take the fall for him. Or any other caucasians who happen by, the story opening with a massacre which would have been wholly unacceptable for American audiences in 1965. The film is brutally violent yet it's cartoon violence rather than the bloody carnage of a Peckinpah. The look mimics the American productions which inspired the Italian, French and German filmmakers who churned these things out for a decade until the fad dried out once it devolved into self-parody.
This one may not have the style or panache of a sumptuous Sergio Leone or Corbucci epic, instead still rooted in the Experimental era of the EuroWestern form prior to the grubby unwashed look of the Classic era productions. These helped set the tone, and gets the job over and done with quickly, with little time for remorse for the dead or character development. They are archetypes, roles crafted to check off list items on the formulary of Western films. Harris' tough-guy persona is well served by the role he plays, a youngish Horst Frank is enjoyable as his counterpart, and Euro Horror actor Tony Kendall is just swarthy enough to be cast as an Indian Chief without eliciting too many guffaws.
For that matter the Native Americans are regarded with surprising sympathy by the filmmakers, scoring plot points by having the Cavalry and despotic white men who drive the plot as the bad guys, their savage reprisals somehow understandable. The establishment of the Anti Hero was the great contribution by the Euro's to the idiom, and indeed contemporary viewers will be surprised at how "modern" the film feels in this unblemished English version presented by the awesome Wu Tang Collection of restored European produced Westerns.
The results may lack the sweeping epic feel of the "Winnetou" fans but was skillfully filmed in widescreen and has a passable twangy electric guitar vibrato music score which will please those who admire such things. Not as plaintively mournful as a Paella-flavored Spaghetti Western score and closer to popular music forms than an operatic Morricone concoction. In fact I'll say that the film is charming just by having less at stake than a grim, sweaty Italo Western, instead playing a cool, calculated and streamlined game of make-believe which reminds me so much of playing Cowboys & Indians as a kid. That's why we watch em, period authenticity be damned.
Mardi Gras Massacre (1978)
I Watched It So You Won't Have To
I mean, you can, if you insist. Hell I had to buy the damn thing, to know it was on my shelf as a physical unit. To say "I have "Mardis Gras Massacre" uncut on DVD", paid the right price for it (less than $15*) and yeah. I wish it was the VHS, but now I don't have to go through all the rigamarole to find one that is in decent playback condition enough to rip a copy onto my phone.
Which is where movies like this belong. In some scummy gutter like venue where men watch shamefully as stacked 70s movie babes are suggestively stripped nude, oiled, shackled to a table and eviscerated for the entertainment of jaded minds. What other reason is there to see it? And if you're going to go along with it that far you might as well own your own copy, and in the most degrading format possible. Which these days means on a phone so you can take it anywhere, gleefully sneaking some sleaze in private, at convenience, and with no one else observing how you consume it.
Rest assured I watched the damn thing with my clothes on sitting up at my desk and found the proceedings to be about as erotic as getting fresh squid at the Korean market up on Avondale Place. The nudity is all depicted in static long shots, the closeups of the Hero Torso which the guts are cut out of laboriously fake in appearance. If anything the Code Red DVD picture quality hammers home the fact that one is watching cheaply made depraved prurient junk. The women are attractive enough, but so what? If you can't see them.
The movie is a pale drab exercise in applied sleaze and a working demonstration of how even the most artless and inept among us can likely squeeze out a gory low budget horror film if they put their minds to it. The filmmakers did it purely for the money with no delusion of art, artifice of reality, imagination. Or even the honest filthmongering of your basic Grand Guginol showpiece with freaks biting off chicken heads and turning into gorilla women. The fascination for me to see it an extension of a morbid interest in the DPP "Video Nasty" list, wanting to see what the furor was about, why this or that title ended up "banned" from kids who were looking for a cheap rental night thrill. Or vicarious sex criminal wishing to see his most base of fantasies played out, since he doesn't have the stomach to go through with it himself. I bet Mary Whitehouse sold more movies than any other hustler of horror schlock dreck just by being herself. Hell that's why I bought it.
The movie sucks and is awful on so many different levels, but has a kind of mindless attention to duty which is still somewhat admirable. The women all walk through the proceedings like they are waiting in a dentist's office, and the inept handling of the shock sequences deadens whatever juxtaposition of prurient fascination which make other gore-shockers border on the pornography department. This does too, but only in the sense that porn is a cheat and this stupid little movie cheats at every chance it gets to try and escape being anything less than a base voyeuristic fantasy for sick twisted minds who wish pain & suffering on their fellow human creatures.
So in that sense score one up for being able to lambast the thing for being stupid, predictable, drecky and unrewarding. Adventuresome and challenging horror thrillers are given distinction by having crap like this available to be better than, and yes even stupid "Drive-In Massacre" is better than "Madi Gras Massacre". At least that movie gave us a couple of characters to observe. Here it's just gutting mannequin dolls with strange disco music playing. Watch it if you feel the need but you're not missing anything by looking for something else. It's no "Psycho Puppet", that's for sure.
There's nothing in this movie that you haven't already seen done by those who had genuine talent and vision for morbid phantasmagorical cinema shows. This one has the imagination of last season's shriveled brown iris bulbs. The taste of a warmed up leftover TV dinner. And the fun factor of a soggy sandwich bag. You can do better.
Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
Scariest Movie Ever Made
Don't even *start* with me, OK? Ten years old. Completely freaked out, hysterical. Unprepared for what we were subjected to. Sunday afternoon, HBO, over at Danny Nappi's house. With my younger brother Phil, good old Dan, a friend or two of his. All I knew was that Captain Kirk was in it. Something about spiders - We laughed. It was going to be soooo fake.
But it wasn't. The cold grip of fear began to clutch nigh about the time the guy climbed into his crop duster plane to rid the town of all them spiders. Back then we didn't know, you see? Or it was only after this that it started to sink in, that the movies weren't real. They couldn't be. Nothing could be that terrifying, and I'm talking Aliens, Things, Count Dracula. Whatever Frankenstein was lumbering around. Bring it. But no way with the god damn spiders.
They were everywhere, my 10 year old brain reasoned. In the basement. In the attic. In the back yard, up at the forest, probably even at school. Spiders, everywhere, waiting to inject us with their stingers & wrap us up in bedsheets. Hell I didn't sleep for two nights, couldn't eat for three days. Was afraid to put on my shoes, go to the store, ride a bike or do anything that might expose me to the threat of all them spiders. We made it home well enough but after that it got dark and I was not ready for night. Totally hyper aware of every crack, nook, cranny or dimpled corner around which some freaking spider could come, looking to sting me, mom, my brothers, maybe even my dad.
Is it OK to scare kids like that? I mean really scare them, scare them so much that they can't function? "Stephen stayed home on Monday because he was too terrified to leave the house after seeing "Kingdom of the Spiders" with William Shatner, and we're not kidding." That's what the note must have read, and of course I was convinced that everyone else was aware that I had been scared not just out of my wits but into a deep darkened place where kids just shouldn't go. You'd get sued for it these days.
And for years that was the Litmus Test: "Is it as terrifying as "Kingdom of the Spiders" was?" To my credit nothing ever was, even when ALIEN crept into those freudian cellar spaces where there was never any natural light and god knows what forms breed in the darkness, waiting to spring on unsuspecting halfwitted twelve year olds sent downstairs to get the laundry. Movies may have startled me or surprised me, but nothing can compare to the sheer horror that "Kingdom of the Spiders" subjected me to, and the film remains held in awe in the family to this day.
Sure, we laugh at it now. Make up drinking games to go with the action. After watching it again I said to myself "I just want to live someplace where there are beautiful women like that to take for granted, knowing they'll always be around." Maybe the biggest lesson to learn was that even Captain Kirk can get handed something waaaaay beyond his ability to cope with, making him fallible and human and, dare I say, just an actor playing a role. So we grew up that day, in a way, sitting on the carpeted floor, mouths agape at the sight of all them spiders teeming all over everything and even Captain Kirk gets covered with them. Almost even dying.
No, I've never been freaked out by a movie that way since and recall the episode with favor, a marvelous learning experience which became a rite of passage. Having made it through those two or three days after seeing "Kingdom of the Spiders" emboldened me enough to learn about them. Learn about film, how they are made, what actors do, and how it's all so fake in the end. Re-make it if you have to, but don't fool yourself. It only works for real the first time through
God Bless America.
Uchû no senshi (1988)
Does A Fan Proud
And that's saying a lot. I am not a committed fan of Japanese manga/anime type entertainment but actually found myself caring about the plight of the characters here. I've read the novel a dozen plus times & saw the 1997 film in a theater on release week. It was a riot. Total strangers hi-fived each other on the way out then went drinking together to rave about the experience to anyone who would listen. Got the video the day it streeted and came to know every line, cadence, beat and explosion. It's a party movie aimed at low attention spans and exactly the movie we deserved at the time.
This is different, a thoughtful and surprisingly low-key adaptation of the source material for Japanese television with some understandable alterations, lots of J-Pop schmaltz rock, and big weepy Manga eyes. Still far more faithful to the book than the 1997 movie, whose filmmakers must have studied this presentation for ideas - It even opens with a football game & high school dance, and our protagonist is likewise motivated by his yearning for the gal of his dreams. There is none of the rightist philosophical discourse which flavors the book. The series' futurist Utopia has none of the contradictions which flavor the 1997 film. The "bugs" are also transformed into Manga movie monsters, organic plasma spewing blobs with lots of whispy tentacles, and quite lethal enough to be worthy of the Mobile Infantry. They will do.
Yes, it shows the powered armor. LOTS of powered armor in fact, which is cool to finally get to see though the design employed has more in common with the Shogun Warriors walking angular Swiss army knife contraptions than the 9 foot tall ape like shells which encased the novel's heroes. Not that it's a problem, and the big payoff for devotees of Heinlen's novel will be the sequence saved until the final episode as the armored Starship Troopers are finally strapped into their re-entry capsules, fired from the Rodger Young, and do battle on the enemy's home planet in an impressive display of cartoon carnage. The entire sequence takes about 12 minutes but was worth every second leading up to it.
Viewers can of course skip the other five installments but by doing so will miss the journey Johnny Rico goes through learning how to control both his powered armor and his grief at the loss of his mother to the alien menace, whatever they are supposed to be. If the series has a weak spot it's that Johnny's romantic aspirations for Carmen Ibanez continue being his motivating factor long after the novel lets go to allow Johnny to focus on learning how to be an effective soldier. Yet the damnedest thing is that I found myself caring about not just Rico but his squad mates as well, suddenly realizing that they are likely facing their own deaths and understandably unnerved. They can only rely on their training, their technology, and each other against overwhelming opposition, a difficult notion to get across on a cartoon yet it somehow manages to. Only the most ruthless and adaptable survive, which is itself right out of Heinlen's Social Darwinism, no classroom lectures required and nothing lost in the translation. War will still be Hell.
The series has yet to surface on a DVD, an almost unforgivable oversight on the part of whomever holds the rights. How do you say "Get the lead out and press this already" in Japanese? The series deserves to be seen, especially considering the brainlessness of the (more or less) abysmal live action direct to DVD franchise which followed up the 1997 film. Here is a thinking person's alternative, and tracking down a fan-subtitled version of the complete six episode series took about three minutes. Look in the obvious place, you shouldn't have to spend a dime and that's a shame. I'd like to reward whomever was responsible with a purchase and have a hard copy on the shelf with the others so I can watch it again at whim -- Nice work!
Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)
... I Had To Look
... I Had To Look
No joke - I purchased my "Starship Troopers II" DVD in 2006 (used, $1, eBay) and have only just found the patience to watch it. Oh, I knew it sucked. Artless, low budget in-name only sequel to the Paul Verhoeven B-Movie anti-blockbuster. Itself an in-name only film treatment of the Robert Heinlen novel, which remains un-filmable due to its subtle complexities. And I'm not just talking about the powered armor or right wing agenda. The book was written with objectives in mind which are at odds with 21st century pop culture sensibilities. Verhoeven's film will have to do.
He refused to lower himself to reprise his movie just for money but some of the high-caliber talent behind it reunited for an inevitable franchise that has been correctly shipped direct to the DVD pressing plant, never illuminating one cinema screen. Crap like this belongs on DVD, no offense to genius Phil Tippett, who not only broke ground with his bug creations for the first film but pretty much wrote how outlandish creatures are currently portrayed onscreen with "Jurassic Park". And no offense to Ed Neumeier, who not only scripted the original film but had pushed the hyper violent cyberpunk epic previously with "Robocop". They are pros and knew what they were doing when putting this very forgettable film together. I trust they were well paid for their time.
The cast is blameless. Only one player returned from the Verhoeven film, specifically steel-eyed Brenda Strong (ship's Captain Deladier) who is brought back as a cigar-chewing female Sergeant, and while it's not a problem I don't get why. Ed Lauter lends temporary credibility to the first few minutes as a besieged MI general cut off from any hope of rescue with a small squad of troopers whom he promptly sends off into the jaws of a plot device. Its name is Dax, he is played by actor Richard Burgi, and is the best thing about the film, which threatens to come to life a couple times when he is onscreen. The second best thing is the steampunk catapult Suitcase Nuke defense system for a lost outpost only he knows how to operate, and its deployment at about the 25 minute mark is the film's climax. It's all downhill from there, including just knowing that a certain character is going to switch off a certain device at a certain moment and guarantee certain doom for anything else of an original nature happening at all.
It's not just that it's a smaller, meaner film. Small films can still be ambitious + convincing, and I like it mean sometimes. It's not just that the core plot component is derivative. The original is about the most derivative film ever made (except maybe "Robowar", LOL) but used its appropriation with bombastic unapologetic glee. Here they just check off the cliches like numbers on a list: The lost unit cut off from rescue, the creepy abandoned base with a power shortage, the gaggle of offbeat personalities making up the speaking roles (the Black Guy, the Crazy Guy, the Techno Nerd, the Green Rookie Scared Witless), the ass-kicking females who are suddenly hot when stripped to a muscle shirt with their hair down, the quirky shifty-eyed loser with the secret, the nympho who was game enough to do a nude scene, the resentful anti-hero pressed into action by circumstance ... Et cetera.
The way the film is photographed is an immediate tipoff: Almost everything is murky, cloudy, smoky, dimly lit. All hallmarks of low budget science fiction filmmakers who are trying to obscure the low budget components of their low budget sets. The main abandoned base location is also helpfully half demolished, meaning that the set designers only needed to drag in heaps of junk to obscure a few functioning prop pieces like doors and make the lights flicker. Computer generated effects fill in the gaps including the bulk of the monster design and none of it boasts the improbable believability of the first film's visceral impact. The violence, gore, and sex are unearned checklist items to be covered without the fun factor which made the first movie such a guilty pleasure masterwork. This one is just guilty, mostly with snitching its premise from the early "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Conspiracy". Which got the job done in 48 minutes for a fraction of the cost & is still a genuine freakout the first time through.
But whatever. After twelve years of not knowing I had to look and got what I deserved. No hard feelings either -- I was fortunate to see the first film in a near riotous screening at an 8th Avenue theater in NYC the week it was released; Complete strangers high-fived each other on the way out. Nothing could ever live up to that experience and I think the filmmakers were aware of it, kept their sights aimed low. Put a mean little film together, made some money, and moved on to other projects.
Worth a rental or $1 used DVD, you'll get what you pay for. Beer may help.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979)
One of the Last Great TV Shows I Grew Up On
I recently treated myself to the current DVD box set release of this film and have been enjoying watching again. I actually didn't get to see all that much of it first time around, age 12 at time time it premiered on a weekday evening (Thursday) in a household where - no kidding - television was not permitted after 7pm on school nights. An insane prospect by modern consideration but in a 1 television household not at all difficult to enforce as long as the parental crew were in the house. But the minute they left we always had a viewing rotation worked out before the set would even be switched on, and Thursday night was always choir night. At first babysitters bribed or charmed into silence. The best one agreed the rule was inhumane and promised to help us respectfully break it IF we were good, and we were. Terry, we owe you one.
By the time we were old enough to manage ourselves we used a Lookout system by which one of us would always keep an eye on the driveway. Just in time for "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" on Thursdays at 8pm. Brilliant! until the "Mork & Mindy" fad caught on and our older brother would usually use Pecking Order clout to change the channel. Thank God we were universal in despising "Laverne & Shirley" or I would have completely missed out on Erin Grey's Wilma Deering. Holy Mother of GOD ... Yes, that got through to me as a 12 year old. Big Time.
And in the end was the reason to score the box set: YouTube reluctantly allows the series in severely compromised uploads that deny one the ability to truly enjoy Erin's fashion trend setting Spandex space leggings, form fitting jumpsuits, space suits, shimmering leotard combos, and whatever else she was sewn into for a given episode. Literally, it turns out, and being able to enjoy Wima Deering updated for the Swimsuit Issue era worth whatever bother, cost, waiting and navigating the DVDs involves. What *ever*.
Now the good news is that while re-invigorating my libido the side effect has been a discovery of what was a pretty cool show that appears to have been ruined by its own success. I'd had the 90 minute theatrical version of the enjoyable pilot episode on VHS & know every line etc. But the rest of the show has been a vague memory involving Buck tossing back shots to Princess Ardalan's chagrin, a Space Vampire, some weird "Hawk" guy, and an increasing annoyance with Twiki which has been quickly set aside. Twiki is the soul of the show and Gil Gerard's fame it's undoing. Legend has it the show's success and free buffets went to Gerard's waistline and he insisted on the alterations which resulted in the confusing, overproduced and fun-lacking 2nd season. After which the series was mercifully cancelled, though by then I was watching "COSMOS" with Dr. Carl Sagan on Thursdays along with all the other cool kids.
I'll get with the party at some point, for now though it's been super fun to re-discover the often unfairly maligned first season. The show is dismissed as campy, cheap looking, and caught up in the fads of the day, which is what hit television shows are about. You want movies, go to the movies. You want offbeat casting, bizarre period costuming, formula scripting and cheeze, you watch television. Cult interest guest stars included Jack Palance, Roddy Mcdowall, Peter Graves, Sid Haig (!!), Frank Gorshin, Richard Moll, Buster Crabbe, Robert "Count Yorga" Quarry, Michael Ansara, Henry Silva, and Woody Strode. For twisted content we get an episode with both Gary Coleman *and* Ray Walston, another with doomed Dorothy Stratten, and the odd reference to OJ Simpson ... What a show! They even disco dance with roller skates and one episode about a rock band has characters named after songs by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
What's there not to like about this show?? Unless you're some sort of malignant fun-wrecker with no sense of nostalgia. Go watch Doctor Who get gender-reassignment or something. Leave us alone.
Doctor Who: Planet of Evil: Part One (1975)
"You're Insane, Salamar ..."
My Favorite Doctor Who Ever and it is all about that jungle. Roger Murray-Leach was the lead designer working for BBC who designed, scrounged materials for and assembled it all inside of a week or two. It's all dangling from an overhead scaffolding. The following week it was obliterated, the only remnants production stills and this crackerjack episode, custom-written to be set in it. Like "Star Trek"'s reliance upon Gorn Rock for its location work "Doctor Who" was guilty of featuring their Gravel Pit of the Week: A forlorn, desolate and appropriately ambiguous looking real world location which could be Skarro or wherever the Tardis was supposed to have set down.
"Planet of Evil" is entirely studio bound with no outdoor location shooting. All of the sets were made for the episode and the jungle planet is more real of a place then all of those gravel pits put together. It breathes with glorious light and color effects, uses what look like pottery or electrical fixtures as space plants, and has knee deep water for the actors to splash around in while evading the Id monster imported from "Forbidden Planet". With all of the effects done with in-camera overlays and weather channel type matting the SFX on display the episode may have "aged" but so have I.
Some remark that the Morrestran ship is a let-down after the jungle set and I counter that anything would have been, and the clunky right angled minimalism of the ship continues to suit my needs as a viewer just as well as the shoulder pad v-necked space suits worn by the crew. They have cool names (Ponti, De Haan, Morelli), have cool guns that make a cool sound and several are sent heroically to their deaths in the proudest tradition of the Red Shirts of "Star Trek". They are there to be wasted onscreen to absolutely petrify the 7 - 12 year olds in the audience just itching to be scared stiff. That's why we tuned in every night. Golden stuff.
Then there's the Salamar issue. As portrayed by Sheakspearan trained actor Prentis Hancock, mission commander Salamar is the working definition of an insufferable histrionic jerk ... Or is he? I prefer a different reading of the performance, which I consider perfect for the subject matter: Salamar is insane, living mentally in an alternate inner reality where his behavior is considered normal. Because he not only holds rank but has a service record of getting things done his shipmates tolerate it and act like he is just as mellow as De Haan after a few pints in the cargo hold. Because Salamar is crazy but has never gone over the line of dysfunctionality to force a subordinate to take action Until now.
Or whatever: You watch this one for the jungle set, and an interesting "Pre-Hype" performance by Tom Baker before he had become a cultural icon. He was still working on developing whom the Doctor was, and quite frankly if he'd stayed with his rather somber persona the series might have evolved a bit further. But alas, K-9 ...
Maciste nella valle dei Re (1960)
Golly!
Good gracious, what a movie. Been watching my Peplums again after a need to better understand the character of Hercules came up. Sure, he's called Maciste (or however its pronounced) in this one but it's essentially the same guy: Muscle-bound demigod begotten from the Sire of Zeus/Jupiter wandering the Earth righting wrongs. Here he comes upon another Peplum Egyptian Pharaonic era royal court beset by all sorts of fascinating evils furthered by the attention-riveting Chelo Alonso, perfectly as the intelligent yet bloodthirsty slave girl come to be Queen of an Empire.
Or whatever — This is one of the most violent and potentially disturbing Sword & Sandal mini- epic I can recall, with an implied body count in the thousands as she has entire human settlements wiped out to further her ambition for ultimate power. Humans torched alive on top of elaborate towers is a favored method of dispatching the unworthy, but our favorite will always be the Crocodile Pool into which assorted cast members are tossed to suffer hideously as they are devoured alive.
And you know, something tells me we're missing a proper introduction to the plot device, as a key character is dispatched fairly early into proceedings, later appearing in a manner in which their identity cannot be confirmed and is supposed to be of bother to the story. Because, I suspect, he was devoured whole by crocodiles in a scene removed from the surviving print, which only mentions the Crocodile Pool towards the end of the proceedings. This totally defies how Pepla are usually structured and in a manner which can only be the result of external meddling.
Much like a James Bond film the best Peplum thrillers establish an elaborately horrifying execution or torture device for its crazed villain's inept underlings fairly early on. The threat of ending up thrown into its workings then hangs over the rest of the plot, indeed driving its plot once the Hero has come into the story. And sure enough Mark Forrest's very capable Maciste is indeed thrown bodily into the Crocodile Pool at what would have been exactly the right moment — If we had known about the Crocodile Pool previously.
Since we do not my suspicions were raised upon a 2nd viewing when going back to make sure the movie really was as cool as I'd thought it was. And "Son of Samson" is, just off-balanced by not having the Crocodile Pool established in the mind's eye of the viewer prior to Maciste being tossed into it. And a 3rd viewing established the likely place where our introduction to its horrors should have been cemented. There is no reason for the plot to insist that the identity of a certain key character is anyone but that person
Unless, that is, he had been devoured by the crocodiles & a dummy used in his place.
The good news is that even after three viewings the film remains of fascination and deserves a restoration. Ms. Alonso is nothing shy of a revelation and her final doom is perhaps the most disturbing moment in Peplum history since Kirk Douglas had his run-in with the Lepers. I'll even forgive the movie for not having a rampaging monster for a big showdown match. Trust me: Maciste has his hands full in this one just contending with all the evil scheming afoot. Fitting in screen time for a giant cyclops or mechanical moon-men would have proved a distraction, and the film concludes on exactly the right note to leave the viewer wondering, "Wait
what was that again, with the thing?"
Il sepolcro dei re (1960)
On the Cutting Out of Tongues
Meanwhile back at the sarcophagus, Italian filmmakers go to great lengths to create an effectively atmospheric Peplum set during the time of the Ancient Egyptian empires. Or there abouts, depends on which language version you encounter. The sets are elegant, the costumes right out of a high school textbook and the film delivers the goods if you like talky period-type drama mixed in with your Swords & Sandals. Lots of intrigue involving royal courts, family lineage, duplicitous religious leaders, and Debra Paget decked out in a Pharaonic babe-getup that is very easy on the eyes. She can lounge around eating grapes over at my place anytime and the dialog is surprisingly fluid for Italian translated to English.
All of which is routine. The film will stand out in my mind as the one where the threat of having one's tongue cut out is repeated sufficient times to prove curious. The first time was cool. The second time was odd. The third time had me wondering if the dubbing was on right, and the fourth time made me laugh. Maybe there's a drinking game to be had here. Nothing else about the film's story made much of an impression though I do not regret the time invested (wasted?), no, consumed by watching it. A mummy subplot could have been cool, or maybe more slave chicks. At least a giant cyclops or something, Guys.
Which is perhaps why having a female lead with a respectable pedigree in such a production will ultimately work against the film's appeal beyond the boundaries of genre viewers. Since Ms. Paget is the intended focus of our ardor the fate of random half naked slave chicks hurled to their doom for the entertainment of some slavering despot becomes less pressing to the needs of the plot, and sadly the filmmakers took the easy way out. Court intrigue or giant a cyclops devouring centurions? If choosing the former, bingo.
Nightmare (1981)
The Fine Art of the Spoiler
Guys, guys GUYS! People get a grip, please. There's a thing called The Spoiler, whereby commentators on films will spoil the fun of getting to see the movie for other people by carelessly revealing a pivotal development, revelation, or secret held by a movie. The fun for viewers is to get to encounter that revelation on their own without having the moment ruined by knowing about it in advance.
"Nightmares" has such a revelation and it only comes in the very last minute of the film. The payoff was fantastic, and thank goodness I had not sought out reviews of the film beforehand or the fun would have been ruined. Almost every review, post, or synopsis of the movie contains that revelation which viewers should have to earn after sitting through the rest of it. By knowing in advance the potency of the scenes which lead up to it is diluted and there were some very potent scenes here which would have suffered from advance knowledge of the revelation.
Best way to sum up the story is to say that a patient from a secret drug treatment program for the criminally insane is released prematurely, goes off his personality modifying meds, and embarks on a journey through the seedy side of America's east coast during which he commits several gruesome killings. That's the extent of what should be revealed. Anything more would spoil the mind- screw of that last minute, and reduce the meaning of the film to a checklist of slasher movie components pieced together by an oblique story which will only serve to distract genre viewers from the horror of it all.
And hence the film's current status: Regarded as a classic by some but dismissed by many more as boring & derivative. Because without coming upon that revelation on your own it is sort of a 2nd rate overly arty if competently made slasher-type horror movie rating just about 5 out of 10: Covers the bases, constructed with skill but not really having anything too spectacular with a comparatively modest body count (I believe it is eight, if you count the big flashback scene). The gore effects may or may not have been "supervised" by Tom Savini, it doesn't really matter, they serve the film well enough. The extra notoriety the controversy generated only means more opportunities for reviewers to spill the beans for audience members who could care less.
I'm glad I ignored it all. With that spoiler intact I give the film a 7 out of ten, with very tight plotting that is only revealed as being more thorough than usual once that revelation takes place. The film is very well made from a technical standpoint with an interesting use of film speeds and droll, non-sensational music. But who watches slasher movies for their plotting, technical work or soundtracks? They are traditionally a series of gruesome set pieces connected by some sort of story which may or may not hold up to the light of day when evaluated separate from the gore. This one does and that alone is somewhat remarkable. Just don't read any more reviews until after watching it or you too may be tempted to dismiss the results for being something different than the usual brainless mayhem.
David e Golia (1960)
They Made the Wrong Movie
Serviceable enough Italian produced historical Peplum drawing upon biblical scenario, directed by Spaghetti Western master Ferdinando Baldi at the beginning of his career. Orson Welles glowers and half-whispers his way through a marvelously pointless performance done in only by Goliath himself, who standing about twelve feet tall at 450 pounds is the focus of my thesis on the film.
Which is specifically that the Italians -- no doubt limited by 1960 era morality -- made the wrong movie. The scenes with Goliath are its best, and the most enjoyable the one where he is promised command of an army (doesn't care) a roomful of gold (been there/done that) and the prettiest most wholesome women in the kingdom attending to his every bidding. SCORE!
The hilarious scene where Goliath sits on a giant throne quaffing a barrel of wine while scantily clad damsels perform a Veil Dance for him should have been the departure point for a much more interesting story exploring just what went down. Though sadly Goliath returns on screen only to slaughter a few guards prior to his disappointingly brief showdown with David. After which the film persists in continuing for a while, missing the point that we weren't dialing in to watch Orson Welles palpitate. We were there for Goliath, and he ruled.